291 replies to this topic

[kmt_sesh]

Emma_Acid, on 15 January 2010 - 12:11 PM, said:

This isn't fossilisation. Fossilisation occurs when bone is turned chemically into rock (I think), and takes millions and millions of years.

The Egyptian dead were embalmed.

Kmt, I've tried to read through as much as possible, sorry if I missed this, but forgetting Moses for a while, is there any evidence that monotheism originated in Egypt?

I don't know if I am agreeing or disagreeing with questionmark in his earlier response, but as it stands now Egypt would appear to have been the first culture in which a form of monotheism was practiced.

I used to fight this tooth and nail, mostly because of the unfounded and idiotic connections fringe writers have made between Akhenaten and Moses, but more careful research on my part has convinced me that, yes, Akhenaten did arrive at a form of monotheism. It certainly did not start out that way, as reliefs and stelae from early in Akhenaten's reign show him accompanied by other deities such as Maat, but by the end of his reign he venerated only the Aten. It was as though several millennia of polytheistic religion had never existed--at least until Akhenaten's death. Within a decade of his demise, the Aten as sole god was already becoming a memory. Starting with Horemheb at the end of Dynasty 18, later rulers made sure it worked out that way.

So I would have to state that monotheism was first practiced in Egypt, if only for a very short time. It has nothing to do with Moses or the later rise of monotheistic Judah, which is obvious, but I am always compelled to say that.

[kmt_sesh]

OhZone, on 16 January 2010 - 01:29 AM, said:

Kmt, are you familiar with the authors of this article:
http://oi.uchicago.e...in95_wente.html

WHO WAS WHO AMONG THE ROYAL MUMMIES
By Edward F. Wente, Professor, The Oriental Institute
and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
The University of Chicago
(This article originally appeared in The Oriental Institute News and Notes, No. 144, Winter 1995, and is made available electronically with the permission of the editor.)”

In studying the bone structure they  are suggesting that some of the mummies have been misidentified.
I thought of this possibility when I was doing my paintings.  The one that really bothered me was Amenhotep III.  He really does look more like he should be the son of Amenhotep II.  However I read that he was son of Thutmose IV and was of mixed race, so I showed him that way.  

I have not read this particular article but am well familiar with the debate. Most of us who study the history and take research seriously have to acknowledge the possibility that some of the royal mummies found in DB320 were misidentified by the men who cleared the tombs and relocated the mummies in Dynasty 21. That the mummies were probably moved to several different caches several different times would have only added to the possibility of misidentification. The identity of Amunhotep III is in fact one of those long under dispute.

A good example, and more recent, is the mummy thought to have been Tuthmosis I (1504-1492 BCE), a great ruler of early Dynasty 18. This mummy was more carefully examined only a couple of years ago. Not many people questioned its identity, as far as I'm aware, but upon closer analysis it was demonstrated that this was the mummy of a man much to young to have been Tuthmosis I, and indeed this man had died of an arrow wound. The arrow point is still embedded in his chest!

Quote

There are also theories that either the Biblical Patriarchs WERE the Pharaohs or that they were real or fictional characters modeled on the Biographies of the Pharaohs.

I'm familiar with some of these theories and find all of them ludicrous. One fellow I came across on the Web was dead certain that Amunhotep III was Solomon and Tutankhamun was David. This was on the forum where I'm a Moderator, but even so I wasn't able to restrain myself and behave nicely. I was obliged to tear his theory apart. I mean, come on, it's backwards to begin with! David ruled before Solomon because, well, Solomon was his son! This is the sort of faulty logic from which people suffer.

In general, however, I find no logic or plausibility in these theories. Most of the Egyptian kings about whom these fringe folks write, such as Amunhotep III and Tutankhamun, lived in a time during which we have no archaeological or textual proof for the existence of the Hebrews--they did not yet exist, in other words. Bottom line, though, ancient Egypt and ancient Judah were two completely different states possessing two very different cultures.

Quote

And then, what do you know about those Egyptian Zodiacs.  I am reading that when decoded that they are from dates in the A.D.
http://www.pims.math.ca/pi/.
The results presented in [1] are most intriguing. The dates obtained were as follows:
Round Denderah zodiac - morning of March 20, 1185 A.D.
Long zodiac - April 22-26, 1168 A.D.
Big Esna zodiac - March 31 - April 3, 1394 A.D.
Small Esna zodiac - May 6-8, 1404 A.D.


This was from:  http://www.revisedhistory.org/egyptian-horo.htm

LOL Sadly I must admit that archaeoastronomy has never interested me, so I know very little about it except on a basic level.

[jaylemurph]

lightlyy, on 15 January 2010 - 08:52 PM, said:

Jaylemurph, not to be critical, only helpful..

According to:  http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091119191058AAjvsJo   and 'Jeopardy' , this morning..
   The Alexander Pope Quote is actually...

"Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defense,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.
If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,

Make use of every friend--and every foe.
A little  learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again."

That made my day! You're quite right to point out my error! Well said! (For what it's worth, I'm well aware of my own defects, but the advice is suitably apt for Slim, as well. Arguably, more so.

--Jaylemurph

[kmt_sesh]

I'd like to weigh in on some hair splitting that was taking place a little earlier. You know me, I can't resist.

Jew, Hebrew, or Israelite?
First of all, Moses was most definitely a Jew. He was also a Hebrew. Technically they're the same thing. A number of people very close to me are of the Jewish faith, including people with whom I work at the museum and my own boss. If you're ever in doubt about such things and happen to know a Jewish person, by all means ask him or her! It is believed the word "Hebrew" derives from the Hebraic term Ivri, which means "from the other side." This goes all the way back to the traditions of Abraham--in other words, all the way back to the beginning. Today a Jewish person would say "Hebrew" refers to the language spoken by their ancestors and in modern Israel, but as my boss has explained to me, it does also mean the same thing as Jew. It would just be an outdated way to identify someone of the faith.

Biblical scholars might get a bit more fussy about the two terms. In some of my readings I've noticed that historically speaking, "Hebrew" is often used to refer to pre-exilic Judah and "Jew" to post-exilic Judah. This is merely a means to distinguish between two different states of development in that culture. Historians have observed that prior to the Hebrews' captivity in Babylon, their religion was noticeably still henotheistic, meaning they acknowledged the possible existence of other deities in the region but paid homage only to Yahweh. After the Hebrews had been released from captivity in 539 BCE and were allowed to return to Judah and Jerusalem, their religion developed into a true monotheism in which Yahweh was (and is) the one and only God. Incidentally, the releasing of the Jews from Babylon is why Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, is fondly remembered in the Old Testament. He was one of the good guys as far as the Jews were concerned.

When writing about antiquity I guess in general I prefer the term "Hebrew," for much the same reason as my boss prefers to be referred to as a Jew. "Hebrew" clearly delineates an older time for that culture. I do not call the people of the southern kingdom of Judah "Israelites," however, because in antiquity that would refer to the northern kingdom. Perhaps I'm the one splitting hairs now.

Swine in the Ancient Near East
There is no doubt that pigs were a common source of meat in the ancient Near East. They appear in Egypt all the way back to the middens and tells of late prehistory, in a clearly domesticated context. In Book II of The Histories Herodotus spends some time stressing how lowly the pig was regarded and, subsequently, the people who raised them, to the point where, Herodotus writes, a swineherd was allowed to marry only the daughter of another swineherd (II.47).

As usual Herodotus is a little muddled on points of accuracy. To be sure the Egyptians' relationship with the pig was somewhat ambiguous, one reason being the pig was one of the emblematic animals of Set, the god of chaos. There were in fact certain social and religious groups which were proscribed from consuming pork (David 2003: 365), but for the most part pork was widely consumed in ancient Egypt. It was probably one of the only sources of meat regularly available to poorer people. This does not mean the pig was considered lowly or unclean, however. There is a scene in the Saqqara tomb of the nobleman Kagemni, dating to Dynasty 6, in which a swineherd is shown giving milk to a piglet from his own tongue (Shaw & Nicholson 1995: 34). This is not something one would ordinarily do to an animal considered unclean.

For the Hebrews it was different. They appear to have avoided pork from the very beginning. Archaeology of the highlands of Judah has produced readily identifiable sites belonging to Jewish settlements dating all the way back to proto-Hebraic times (Late Bronze Age). This was long before the Hebrews formed their own fixed culture and state, but even in the earliest times proto-Hebraic sites show a clear lack of pig remains (Finkelstein 2001: 119-120). Neighboring sites belonging to Canaanite peoples generally do reveal the remains of pigs, however, demonstrating that pork was widely consumed in the Levant.

So why did the Hebrews always seem to avoid pork? Deuteronomy 14:8 states the pig was not to be consumed "...because it divides the hoof but does not chew the cud, it is unclean for you. You shall not eat any of their flesh nor touch their carcasses." The degree of clarity in meaning of this statement can be argued, and there is really no evidence that the Hebrews avoided pork due to economic or health reasons. The most likely scenario for the rise of the Hebrews is as an offshoot of their Canaanite kin in the upheavals of the Late Bronze Age. There remains to this day no solid evidence whatsoever for the Old Testament version of the Promised Land and the Hebraic conquest of the Canaanites. It's possible, then, that proscription against pork was merely yet one more means for the nascent Hebrew people to set themselves apart from the rest of Canaanite culture, from which they were swiftly diverging.

[SlimJim22]

Thanks Kmt, that sure was informative. that about wraps the issue up for me. Domestic pig farming was widespread after all and Jews are post exile, hebrews pre exile. Simple. The only point a would like to mention is as to the writing of the scripture. Is it prudent to think that Moses passed down the first five books in an oral tradition until they were wrote by scribes during the exile or were they written much earlier? Either way what is the chance of Books develoing or being altered in the centuries where it was recalled orally?

[Riaan]

jaylemurph, on 13 January 2010 - 05:00 PM, said:

As usual, I think it's telling you quote these things without telling us their source. We can't see if (or how) you've changed them, or if they agree with other translations. I can't see any real difference between using a religious source and using material from your website, since they're both essentially propagandist.

--Jaylemurph

I did state very clearly that these references come from Josephus [The New Complete Works of Josephus, William Whiston & Paul Maier, Kregel Publications, 1999], and the actual references appear directly after the name, e.g. AA means Against Apion, etc. I did neglect to add the reference for Justin, which comes from the same book, p. 1014, Dissertation 3, Justin Book 36, 1(75).

[lightly]

jaylemurph, on 16 January 2010 - 04:09 AM, said:

That made my day! You're quite right to point out my error! Well said!

--Jaylemurph

Thanks Jaylemurph!   ...  the line  (" a little learning is a dangerous thing") is  misquoted  by most people...   It's a GREAT poem isn't it? ..  I had never read it before .     I'm often incapable of participating in discussion, so i hope it's ok if i insert an occasional minor correction, when i can.   In That spirit... Emma_Acid..  a fossil is any organism ,plant or animal, recorded in rock.. not just bone. ... i  think... that may be a dangerous supposition on my part  

[questionmark]

SlimJim22, on 16 January 2010 - 11:10 AM, said:

Thanks Kmt, that sure was informative. that about wraps the issue up for me. Domestic pig farming was widespread after all and Jews are post exile, hebrews pre exile. Simple. The only point a would like to mention is as to the writing of the scripture. Is it prudent to think that Moses passed down the first five books in an oral tradition until they were wrote by scribes during the exile or were they written much earlier? Either way what is the chance of Books develoing or being altered in the centuries where it was recalled orally?

Now, if we argue that the Moses books were "edited" or passed down incoherently we are already casting doubt on the whole thing and are back to archeological evidence where the result is ..... (still looking for it)

[Emma_Acid]

kmt_sesh, on 16 January 2010 - 03:19 AM, said:

So I would have to state that monotheism was first practiced in Egypt, if only for a very short time. It has nothing to do with Moses or the later rise of monotheistic Judah, which is obvious, but I am always compelled to say that.

Not to me!! Thanks anyway.

What was the purpose of this brief spate of monotheism? It seems that monotheism arises when there's a need for unity, such as Judaism and the tribes of Israel, or Christianity uniting the Eastern Roman Empire.

Is this the case with Egypt?

[jaylemurph]

lightlyy, on 16 January 2010 - 01:57 PM, said:

Thanks Jaylemurph!   ...  the line  (" a little learning is a dangerous thing") is  misquoted  by most people...   It's a GREAT poem isn't it? ..  I had never read it before .     I'm often incapable of participating in discussion, so i hope it's ok if i insert an occasional minor correction, when i can.   In That spirit... Emma_Acid..  a fossil is any organism ,plant or animal, recorded in rock.. not just bone. ... i  think... that may be a dangerous supposition on my part  

Yes, it is! It's marvelous, and remains one of the best examples of literary criticism in English -- I love how he manages to re-create every literary error and then correct it in the next line.

And only fools can't bear honest correction when they're wrong.

--Jaylemurph

[kmt_sesh]

SlimJim22, on 16 January 2010 - 11:10 AM, said:

Thanks Kmt, that sure was informative. that about wraps the issue up for me. Domestic pig farming was widespread after all and Jews are post exile, hebrews pre exile. Simple. The only point a would like to mention is as to the writing of the scripture. Is it prudent to think that Moses passed down the first five books in an oral tradition until they were wrote by scribes during the exile or were they written much earlier? Either way what is the chance of Books develoing or being altered in the centuries where it was recalled orally?

I have a hard time seeing Moses as an actual, living person in the first place. I regard him as mytho-historical. I think it's safe to say no one named Moses was responsible for any of the Pentateuch (first five books). That many of the writings in the Pentateuch began as oral tradition is a near certainty, however. It's not all that different from the Iliad and Odyssey and Homer. Homer probably was a real person but it's quite unlikely he crafted the Iliad and Odyssey himself. For that matter we cannot be certain if Homer was even literate, but for whatever reason the Iliad and Odyssey were attached to him. The meter and composition of these two stories reveal that they began as oral tradition and were only later committed to paper.

So it is with the Old Testament. When the books of this part of the Bible, the Pentateuch included, first began as oral tradition is probably impossible to determine. We can see vestiges of themes borrowed from other cultures, such as the flood myth from Mesopotamia, the foundling in the basket from Assyria, and Egyptian wisdom teachings in such passages as Psalms, but the precise origins of oral traditions are extremely difficult to pin down.

What we can say is that widespread literacy was common in Judah by the seventh century BCE (Schniedewind 2004: 99), but that doesn't necessarily tell us when the Torah was first penned. The more archaeology that is conducted in the Holy Land, the more informative the result can be. A recent issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (200th Issue) has a very interesting article on excavations taking place at the site of Ketef Hinnom, in which the clearing of a tomb in 1979 revealed two tiny silver-foil amuletic scrolls on which were written fragmented prayers. The excavators of the time were unable to examine these little scrolls properly because of the damage they had sustained, but advances in technology (including fiber optics) have enabled modern researchers to decipher them.

It turns out these two little scrolls bear the earliest extrabiblical references to Yahweh and the oldest-known reference to priestly blessings that would become part of Numbers 6:24-26. The scrolls date to the late seventh century BCE (BAR, Barkay 2009: 34-35, 122-124). This suggests that the Torah was first being assembled around the same time that literacy was becoming widespread in Judah.

I know, this is a long way to go to try to express the fact that the original writings of the Old Testament are significantly more complex than the general version that Moses and a scant handful of others sat down and penned them. We will never know, in fact, who actually first wrote them, and how many hands down through the centuries edited them. Finds such as the Dead Sea Scrolls near Qumran and the Nag Hammadi gnostic gospels in Egypt demonstrate the wide variety of forms and versions the oldest Judaic and Christian texts took. It was a conscious and deliberate act at the hands of the powers that be back then that shaped the Torah for the Jews and the New Testament for the Christians. We can go back even farther than Qumran for the Jews and see that after Cyrus the Great freed them from captivity and sent them back to Jerusalem, there was a fair amount of editing and revising of extant books such as Kings. The Old Testament was never a fixed or static icon but rather a corpus very long in the making.

[kmt_sesh]

Emma_Acid, on 16 January 2010 - 03:56 PM, said:

Not to me!! Thanks anyway.

What was the purpose of this brief spate of monotheism? It seems that monotheism arises when there's a need for unity, such as Judaism and the tribes of Israel, or Christianity uniting the Eastern Roman Empire.

Is this the case with Egypt?

Even the most brilliant historians alive today are still debating the exact reasons Akhenaten carried out his profound religious revisions in the fourteenth century BCE. I don't know if I can do it proper justice when compared to some of the experts who have written about the Amarna Period of Dynasty 18 (particularly Cyril Aldred, Donald Redford, and Nicholas Reeves), but there are competing theories.

• Religious visionary. This theory is based solely on the piety and religious zeal Akhenaten may have possessed. The deity known as the Aten existed in the pantheon long before the time of Akhenaten, and indeed his own father, Amunhotep III, appears to have made veneration of the Aten a personal form of piety, but Akhenaten brought it to extremes. Akhenaten was probably schooled at Heliopolis and had the solar religion driven into him from an early age, but why he became so attached to the Aten is anyone's guess, in the end. The Aten was actually only a minor manifestation of the primary solar god Re, so in the early Amarna Period Akhenaten allowed the worship of Re and related deities such as Horus and Re-Horakhty; in fact, the earliest depictions of the Aten in Akhenaten's reign show it in the form of the solar aspect of Horus. It was only toward the end of his reign that Akhenaten narrowed the pool of gods to the Aten and the Aten alone. This theory would suggest a growing obsession with the Aten such that other more prominent deities were forced out of the scene.
  
  
• Control of the Amun priesthood. Here, Akhenaten's veneration of the Aten was a means to bring the extremely powerful and wealthy cult of Amun to an end. This is quite plausible because Amun had been a god of ever-increasing importance since the Middle Kingdom (especially beginning around 1974 BCE), and kings were obligated to give a certain percentage of lands, wealth from military conquests, and foreign tributes to the main state temples. Amun was the main state god beginning in the New Kingdom, and by the time of Akhenaten, more than 600 years after Amun first began to grow in dominance, you can imagine how wealthy the priesthood of this god must have been. Amun's main cult center was in ancient Thebes, at the Karnak complex, and it is believed that by the time of Akhenaten this priesthood controlled fully a quarter of all cultivatable lands in Egypt.
  
  Bearing in mind that agriculture was the backbone of the Egyptian economy, this amount of wealth controlled by one priesthood is difficult to fathom. It's not an exaggeration to state that the high priests at Thebes rivaled Akhenaten in wealth and wielded significant power in the court. (As an aside, the female king Hatshepsut earlier in Dynasty 18 was able to assume full power of the throne most probably because of her powerful contacts within the Amun priesthood of her own time.) It's not difficult to imagine, then, how a king with different beliefs might be motivated to shut down this economic and possible political threat. The economy could not sustain two main gods with two main cult complexes at the same time, so the theory goes Akhenaten proscribed worship of Amun, closed down Karnak, and shifted full emphasis to the Aten.
  
  
• Plague. A more recent theory suggests motivations based on widespread plague. There is evidence to suggest that sickness was ravaging the Nile Valley in the pervious reign of Amunhotep III. It's believed that migrants from Syro-Palestine may have brought the plague with them, into Egypt. Veneration of the old gods was not producing the desired results of ending the plague, so the theory goes, so in desperation Akhenaten abandoned the old ways, moved to a virgin site in Middle Egypt, built a new capital city, and took up veneration of a once-minor deity that he elevated to the highest status. The plague theory also seems plausible because Akhenaten wrote on boundary stelae surrounding his new city that he vowed never to leave it once he had moved in there. And by all appearances he kept to his word. His self-imposed isolation led to a collapse of Egypt's dominance in surrounding regions, the might of the military waned, and foreign powers like the Hatti and Mitanni were allowed to grow strong. It was as though Akhenaten was terrified of venturing beyond the confines of the city of Akhetaten. In point of fact, though Egypt would rebound in power and position after the time of Akhenaten, it would never quite regain the supreme and uncontested position it enjoyed before his reign.
  
  
• A combination of the above. LOL A combination of the above.

In other words, there can be no easy answer as to why Akhenaten created the world's oldest version of monotheism. We simply do not have all of the answers. The harsh truth is, we know next to nothing about the actual personalities and characters of Egyptian kings, so it goes to follow that we often don't know what their true motivations were for any given course of action.

Sorry this got so long, and I'm sure it's a helluva lot more than you wanted. You know me, though: when it comes to ancient Egypt, I can't shut up. And the Amarna Period of Dynasty 18 is one of the most mysterious and interesting periods in all of pharaonic history.

[Golden Hawk]

I will have to rely on Kmt-Sesh for the exact Dynasty here.

The warrior pharaoh Tuthmoses the II(?) or III(?), whose disfigured mummy resides in the Egyptian museum has, in recent years, been considered the best candidate to be the pharaoh of the Exodus.  Translated his name means "brother of Moses".  Any glance at his remains show he died a horrific death, possibly in battle.  His skull shows lethal signs of having been repeatedly struck with  a battle ax; his wounds were compared to the marks a copy of that era's Kmt battle axe and the marks are close to a perfect match, allowing for the fact he was not mummified in a decent amoount of time, decomposition had already started.

His face is contorted in what can only be described as a death scream, his hands and arms are raised in a deffensive manner.

Scant period records of neighboring countries, such as modern day Isreal and the Sudan, have been uncovered in recent years that mention a great migration out of Kmt at the same time Tuthmoses died.  It is known that Tuthmoses did indeed have an elder brother whose name is lost in time, who was to ascend the throne by right of direct lineage.

[cormac mac airt]

I know that both Tuthmosis I and II were 18th dynasty but I'd be interested in kmt_sesh's reply, myself, as to the translation of the name as "brother of Moses". Particularly as "Moses" as a name didn't exist in Ancient Egypt. A more correct translation would be "born of Thoth", IIRC.

cormac

[kmt_sesh]

Golden Hawk, on 17 January 2010 - 06:26 AM, said:

I will have to rely on Kmt-Sesh for the exact Dynasty here.

The warrior pharaoh Tuthmoses the II(?) or III(?), whose disfigured mummy resides in the Egyptian museum has, in recent years, been considered the best candidate to be the pharaoh of the Exodus.  Translated his name means "brother of Moses".  Any glance at his remains show he died a horrific death, possibly in battle.  His skull shows lethal signs of having been repeatedly struck with  a battle ax; his wounds were compared to the marks a copy of that era's Kmt battle axe and the marks are close to a perfect match, allowing for the fact he was not mummified in a decent amoount of time, decomposition had already started.

His face is contorted in what can only be described as a death scream, his hands and arms are raised in a deffensive manner.

Scant period records of neighboring countries, such as modern day Isreal and the Sudan, have been uncovered in recent years that mention a great migration out of Kmt at the same time Tuthmoses died.  It is known that Tuthmoses did indeed have an elder brother whose name is lost in time, who was to ascend the throne by right of direct lineage.

The name Tuthmosis, which is a Greek derivation of the actual name Djehutymose, does not refer to the biblical Moses. In this case it means "born of Thoth.' Again the Greeks are guilty of some linguistic corruption because to the Egyptians Thoth was actually pronounced Djehuty, the Egyptian god writing, magic, and wisdom. The "mose" portion (transliterated ms) means "born of" ("child of" is another translation).

Both Tuthmosis II and Tuthmosis III reigned in Dynasty 18 (1549-1069 BCE). Tuthmosis II died an old man and as his mummy reveals, there are no indications of trauma; he died of natural causes. Tuthmosis III also died in old age. Likewise, his mummy, although badly damaged in antiquity, shows no sign of perimortem trauma. Again, natural causes.

Some have tried to fix the Exodus within the reign of Tuthmosis III because of 1 Kings 6:1, where we are told that Solomon built his temple 480 years after the Exodus. By Dodson's chronology Tuthmosis III reigned 1479-1424 BCE. Solomon built his temple in 968 BCE. Counting back 480 years, then, we arrive at the approximate date of 1448 BCE. So indeed, the date would fall within the reign of Tuthmosis III, the most powerful warrior pharaoh of dynastic history. The problem is, many years of exhaustive archaeological work in the Holy Land have confirmed that the Hebrews did not yet exist at this early time. The very earliest evidence for them anywhere is on the Victory Stela of Merenptah, who reigned 1212-1201 BCE, in Dynasty 19, over 200 years after the time of Tuthmosis III.

There is, however, a royal mummy who bears the wounds you're describing, and this mummy is very well known for it. Examine this image. The most likely explanation for these gruesome wounds is in fact battle, although alternative explanations have been posited. This is the mummy of Seqenenre Tao II, who reigned 1558-1553 BCE, late in Dynasty 17. This was at the end of the Second Intermediate Period. This king, also known as Intef V Sekhemre-wepmaat, is probably the man who initiated war with the Hyksos, who ruled all of Lower Egypt and portions of Upper Egypt at this time. He likely perished in battle against the Hyksos, and his battle cry was subsequently carried on by his sons Kamose and Ahmose I, the latter of whom was ultimately successful in driving the Hyksos out of Egypt and deep into Canaan, where he virtually exterminated them. Ahmose I was the founder of Dynasty 18 and the New Kingdom, whereupon Egypt became the primary power of the Near East.

The Hyksos are most definitely not to be confused with the Hebrews, as I've repeatedly tried to stress in other posts. You find the connection on a myriad of dubious websites and in a number of books written by fringe writers who do not appear to understand how to practice good research methods, so the connection between the Hyksos and Hebrews can be dismissed with confidence. This was in a time well before the Hebrews existed. The Hyksos were simply a mixture of Western Semitic peoples mostly from southern Palestine, and it is clear from the excavations of their principal settlements in the Nile Delta that they practiced the same sort of burials and worshiped the same pagan gods as their Canaanite kin up north. Seqenenre Tao II died at the hands of worshipers of Baal and Astarte, not Yahweh.